Of Stalkers, Creation(ists) and Copyright law

I've been doing quite a bit of blogging lately, mostly because I am very free and have nothing to do, and also because I'm waiting for a certain person to reply... Failing which will cause me to engage in pseudo-stalkerish behaviour like reading scientific papers on apolipoproteins (specifically ApoA1) and quaint villages in Italy. It also makes me think about pizza and stuff like that.... mmmm...pizza.

Well, I admit my attention span isn't long enough to engage in true stalkerish behaviour, so I have to resort to pseudo-stalkerish ones.

Erm... Whaddaya mean it's not stalkerish? IT IS! Just take it from me. I'm actually a despo at heart.

So OK, I started reading about ApoA1 already. Curiously, like almost every bloody other topic I've been reading nowadays leads to those Creationist type people... (Maybe they are also engaging in pseudo-stalkerish type behaviour, what do I know?) Specifically, it led me to AiG, a site I honestly do not hold in high regard at all, though from what I see, it's one of the better Creationist type websites.

OK, so there is this beneficial mutation of the ApoA1 gene found in Italy, and some people take it to be an affront to Creationism... including some creationists themselves. I don't see the link, and whoever thinks that way has a weird understanding of Creationism and science in general. Unless you're talking about the more fundie versions of Creationism, in that case, ANY form of mutation or even natural selection itself is an affront to those versions.

Fair enough if it ended there. Then later the article goes on and on about mutations leading 'increase in information' is only detrimental to Creationism. OK, so what the heck do they define as 'increase in information'? 'Increase in information' means making an enzyme more specific. So what the heck does THAT have to do with Creationism, or even evolution itself? I thought you were supposed to be arguing about genes and stuff, not enzymes and proteins?

Even if I take it to be true, from what I understand the mutated ApoA1 is MORE, not less specific.

I mean:

Now in gaining an anti-oxidant activity, the protein has lost a lot of activity for making HDLs.

Isn't making LESS types of HDLs = more specific? What is their problem? Then they start talking about Cars and Porches and irrelevant stuff that has completely nothing to do with specificity.

Methinks they doth protest to much. Actually, I think I can explain their behaviour:

In any case, I believe this idea of theirs arises from a flawed understanding of both evolution as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a law that creationists spout all the time. The second law talks about a tendency for increase in entropy (randomness) in a closed, isolated system, mostly because of statistics. Creationists take this to mean loss of information (OK, if you define information that way). Evolution talks about the change in the gene pool over time. Creationists take this to mean an increase in information (That's still perfectly OK). Now, they fail to realize that the word 'information' in the second law, evolution and enzyme specificity posess completely different meanings...

In the second law, information refers to the orderedness of the distribution of energy.

In evolution, information refers to whatever the heck is available to the gene pool.

In the context AiG talks about, it refers to enzyme specificity...

Look, just because the same word is used doesn't mean it means the same freaking thing! That is also why I hate my chem notes and certain textbooks... (oops I digress)

Not only that, they fail to see the word 'thermodynamics', which means it is used to describe the distribution of ENERGY (which has little to do with genetic information). Not only that, even if the law can be applied, they also only look at half of the law and see what they like to see, and miss out the closed, isolated system bit.

I don't blame them, many a physics student makes those sorts of mistakes, and apply laws in places that are not supposed to be applied, as well as ignore fundamental assumptions and conditions to their detriment. This is the fault of poor education (I think I'll rant about this one day); I just wish they won't go around perpetuating it.

Then later, they go off saying: OK, so maybe this ApoA1 mutation is beneficial and stuff but you have to consider other factors, those makes it negligible anyhow! Also, um... we don't actually know if it's all that beneficial in homozygous form cos' we haven't found anyone that way so we think it might be lethal and stuff like that. Yeah. (Hey, I think AiG does not approve of incest, and since this mutation is found within highly related individuals, I don't think they'd like very much if homozygous individuals exist. But in the name of Science...!)

"You have to consider other factors" argument is just plain intellectually silly. I mean, since you are debating evolution (or lack thereof), and assuming that you find beneficial mutations an affront to your beliefs (it is not), the very fact that mutant ApoA1 possesses a significant enough (statistically and reality-wise speaking) benefits is more than enough, external factors or not. The only purpose I can glean from this point is to make readers feel better about themselves not possessing the mutant ApoA1. Also, maybe NE-type purposes of promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Here's their article so you could judge for yourself.

This is one of the more sophisticated creationist articles I have ever seen, yet it misses the point and falls flat on its face. There's a reason folks why creationists never seem to manage to convince me no matter how sophisticated (I think the sophist bit in sophisticated is right) they think their arguments are. In general I find their arguments are based on completely weird assumptions (such as the information thing), miss the point completely (such as the 'other factors' part of the argument) and some of it is pure fallacy (those arguments are way too painful for me to read).
In short, most of the time, creationists never seem to know what they're talking about! And it doesn't help that some pro-evolution (or should I just say anti-creationist, cos' they don't seem very pro-evolution to me) people don't know what they are talking about either (yuck). No wonder I try to stay away from stupid debates like those.

Now, I always thought Creationists were people that were pretty much confined to the US. But no, they must come to Singapore... I blame the internet. I blame the Straits Times. I blame the government (sometimes). I also blame the TYS (very related to the suckiness in education I mentioned earlier). Hey, you people can believe in whatever you want regardless of evidence... but just don't expect me to believe whatever it is you believe without evidence. And don't go around thinking that people are 'oppressing' you just because they don't actively support or care about your beliefs.

Maybe I should blog less about stuff that irk me (at least in the intellectual sense) and blog more about stuff that make me happy... Believe me, I'm normally quite happy with the world. There's lots of leftover stuff that's good and great (like physics)! Err... why do I detect a very sudden hostile and disagreeable atmosphere?

There's still the copyright law bit in the title, sorry, but the creationist bit took up much more space than I intended (cos' I didn't expect myself to write a half-rebuttal for an extremely flawed article), but that's the way it is, sorry.

Well, no... copyright laws don't make me happy. In fact, I actively detest it. I also detest plagiarism and unoriginality, but the world ain't so clear cut as Bush says.

Copyright, in its current form is more a protection of the interests of big companies than a protection of the interests of creators, artists, consumers.

It's so-called protection lasts for way too long, and it is granted to many of the wrong people. In Singapore, copyright lasts up to 70 years after the death of the artist. Look, I don't see how copyright guarantees my rights as an artist I'm dead. I doubt I'll be making any more money if I die. True, I may have family to feed and stuff after my death, but I think they'll die way before 70 years of my death in most cases, and if I were worried about that, I'd rather transfer the copyright to their name in my will and such.

So what's the point of that silly law? Well, humans are mere mortals, but big companies live for pretty long. Think Mickey Mouse and Disney. And furthermore, in the US, as Mickey ages, the copyright law lengthens, ensuring Mickey would never be public domain. Ever.

Now, what's my REAL problem exactly? So, OK, these laws over-protect artists beyond usefulness to them and benefits companies big time. So maybe lawyers have never heard of the law of diminishing returns because it's an economics law and not a legal one and you feel like murdering them, but what's the problem here?

May I remind you copyright not so much grants creators (or rather, big companies) rights, but rather, restricts the rights of others to reproduce, redistribute and/or otherwise modify the work of the creator? May I remind you that sometimes, creativity is a synthesis of two old ideas rather than creating something from vacuum? Further, may I remind you that sometimes, copyrights restricts ways you are allowed to enjoy the work of others? It also sometimes places restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression (esp. on the internet, anyone remember the hyperlinking hoo-ha during the dot com days)? I checked Singapore's law out, and it does not have fair-use extended to parodies.

What prompted me to mess around with the law? Well, I was out with Jiawen yesterday and I got to see her notes... It had empty slides, so I asked why. She said that the lecturer was particular about copyright law... and thus can't reproduce the diagrams.

But um...? I said, isn't educational use considered under fair use (or rather in the language of Singaporean law, Acts not Constituting Infringements of Copyright Works)?

Apparently, according to her, they changed the law and added stuff to it? Erm...? Yeah I remember an amendment some time ago to comply with FTAs (What's so free about copyright law?), but I don't think they mucked with the Ed-use provision. Yes, I know Singapore is more than happy to kowtow to MNCs at expense to consumers and would be more than happy to strengthen copyright law just to have advantage over say, China, but if liddat, how to become World-Class Education Hub? Well, I know sometimes the gahmen and institutions acts in ways that undermines their stated goals, (Sedition Act on Bloggers vs. Open and inclusive society anyone?) But I think they are smart enough to leave Ed-use alone.

So I checked it out first thing in the morning:

The Educational Use thing was still there, to my relief... with a weird emphasis on examinations... Oh yay! But the older (pre-amendment) bits of the law were pretty unclear about diagrams and stuff, but they added a new section on Performer's Protection. According to Section 247. in the Copyright Act, my intepretation tells me that including diagrams in notes for a course should be pretty much OK:

Educational purposes
247. Without limiting the meaning of the expression “educational purposes” in paragraph (c) of the definition of “exempt recording” in section 246 (1), a recording or a copy of such a recording, shall be taken to have been made for the educational purposes of an educational institution if it is made —

(a) for use in connection with a particular course of instruction provided by the institution; or

(b) for inclusion in the collection of a library of the institution.

Here are the definition of "exempt recording" in Section 246(1) that I think cover it rather nicely:

(c) a direct or an indirect recording of a performance made by, or on behalf of, the body administering an educational institution solely for the educational purposes of that institution or of another educational institution;

(d) a direct or an indirect recording of a performance made solely for the purposes of setting or answering the questions in an examination or communicating the questions to the candidates;

(e) a direct or an indirect recording of a performance made in the course of instruction, or preparation for instruction, in the making of a cinematograph film or a sound-track associated with the visual images forming part of a cinematograph film, if the recording is done by a person giving or receiving such instruction;

Does anyone find (c) funny? I swear that phrasing occurs at least 3 times in the entire act.

So maybe his problem is in Section 248:

Exempt recordings cease to be exempt recordings in certain circumstances
248.
*snip bits completely unrelated*
(3) A recording or a copy of such a recording that is an exempt recording because it was made for a purpose referred to in paragraph (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h) or (i) of the definition of “exempt recording” in section 246 (1), ceases to be an exempt recording if it is used for any other purpose without the authority of the performer.

NOTE: Educational use is under 246 (1) (c), I think.

I think he's scared that sibuk people like me would read his notes and that would go under Section 248 because I am legally not associated with his course or educational institution as defined somewhere else. Haha...

I also found out legally that NDP is not considered a performance... I quote section 246 (2):

The following shall be taken not to be performances for the purposes of this Part:

(a) a performance referred to in section 23 (1);

(b) a reading, recital or delivery of any item of news and information;

(c) a performance of a sporting activity;

(d) a participation in a performance as a member of an audience;

(e) a performance in a National Day Parade in Singapore; or

(f) any other performance as may be prescribed by the Minister.

I found various weird stuff throughout includeing a pan-dimensional bits in the law in Section 69. But they only talk about 2 and 3 dimensional work! But err... according to superstring theory the world has like 11... how? And do they include time as dimension? You know this can effect music?

Of course, I would like to disclaim that everything I write in this entry is of my opinion, and if you think that the opinion of some 19 year old who does not even want to be a lawyer reading said piece of legislation with a headache is sound advice, use at your own risk. In other words, it's your own problem, and you are displaying a serious lapse of judgement. But if you would like to see the law and what neat stuff it holds, it's here. Remember, the copyright act is Chapter 63!

Information yearns to be free. No?

I can live with copyright, but actually, folks, I'm more pissed at software patents. Remember the LZW patent in GIF? Why do you think I use PNG? There was a time when IE won't display PNG properly so I had to use JPEG suboptimally. Ah, well, such is life.

I think my entries are getting very long lately. I should seriously split them in future. Or go away and write a book instead.

Inbox is empty! Damn! Time to resume pseudo-stalkerish behaviour. Sometimes, I feel that spammers love me the most. Dear spammers, the love is not reciprocal. Sorry.